Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

[liz_marcs]

Still feelling craptastic, although I dragged my butt into work today because...yeah. I'm stupid. That and I'm just well enough to be going out of my skull from boredom.

I may post another part tonight for Facing the Heart in Darkness. Or I may just crawl directly into bed. Depends on how sucky I feel.

I do apologize for the delay, but this stomach bug sucks.

Anyway, I've been seeing some discussion about the Danish Charicature Riots, especially among the Europeans on my FList. As I've been in and out of it pretty much for the past five days, I haven't really gotten involved in the discussion nor have I been able to really think clearly about it.

I did, however, find a very good write up about what happened this past weekend.

Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan who specializes in Middle Eastern Studies has the best, most balanced, and most level-headed take on the caricatures that riled the Muslim world that is very much worth reading.

Sample quote:

I want to underline that few places in the Muslim world have seen violence over the caricatures, so far mainly Damascus and Beirut (which are unexpected in this regard.) Protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere have been nonviolent. This is not to play down the seriousness of what happened in Damascus and Beirut over the weekend — acts which can only inspire horror and condemnation — only to set it in context. There are 1.5 billion Muslims. A lot of Muslim countries saw no protests at all. In some places, as in Pakistan, they were anemic. The caricature protests are resonating with local politics and anti-imperialism in ways distinctive to each Muslim country. The protests therefore are probably not mostly purely about religion.

I really recommend that you read the whole thing...


ETA: A Sign of the Times...
via Atrios

Freaky-ness.

Once upon a time, you'd have to search someone's bedroom and find the diary when you had people like Jacob D. Robida, the New Bedford 18-year-old who attacked patrons in a New Bedford gay bar with a hatchet and a gun and then subsequently died in a shootout with police in Arkansas.

Now, you can always read Robida's My Space page to get a look inside the mind of a killer.

Anyone else just a little creeped out by this? Or is it just me?

Comments

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

Dane here, with my biased opinion, and I seem to getting more and more biased as time a goes by, sadly enough.

Yes most of the violence seems to be from the countries Lebanon and Syrian, but the situation seems to escalate still in Southeast Asia too. In Jakarta did protester to try storm the Danish embassy see here. And another thing is that even in the "peaceful" protest are there threat of violence and or the call for total destruction of Denmark.

The Arabic countries newspaper written in English, are feeding the fire of the conflict, with their sloppy one-sided “journalism”, there where times where I found factual fact that so far out, that they could only mean they have had pulled the “fact” out of the thin air. And I am biased enough to think that the Arabic versions, are probably not any better more likely worse.

The Danish foreign affair; recommend that Danes stay away from the following countries, except if it is extremely necessary: Marokko, Algeriet, Tunesien, Libyen, Egypten, Sudan, Oman, Forenede Arabiske Emirater, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait.

The newspaper JP is political liberal right wing with a generally good reputation and it’s owned by its own fond, so it doesn’t have to answer over for an owner.

Personally do I find the drawings pretty mild. And I can’t really understand why they are racists, I can see if you called them blasphemy, but racism has to do with race?. All this get me to remember that saw a painting in at art museum with early Danish surrealists. One of the painting that I do remember was with Christ on the crucifix bone thin with a gas mask on his in the background commands catholic priest German soldiers to attack civilians. It was written as a commentary over the Catholic Church involvement in the Spanish civil war. That paining was, at the time it got drawn, almost certain blasphemy in Denmark, which could get you a prison sentences, and in Spain without a doubt. It was not picasso’s ”Guernica” but i am stil glad it got painted.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, the racism issue...I think this maybe the American definition vs. everyone else's definition in play here.

As someone who isn't Muslim, there are really only two where I can see an insult, a few others I can see as mildly offensive, a few I simply just don't get, but I assume it's because I can't translate something in the cartoons or because I'm culturally ignorant.

I'm also not even arguing that the cartoonists didn't have the right to draw what they did. I'm not even aruging that the don't have the right to be even more insulting if they wish. Freedom of speech ain't always pretty. Sometimes it means letting some real assholes speak, like some of the U.S.'s juicer racist organizations and holocaust deniers and right-wing-nut-jobs that actually advocate killing progressives like me because we're "traitors" and "not real Americans."

I also agree that the level of violence is absolutely wrong and is completely out of proportion to the supposed insult these cartoons are supposed to represent.

As I was saying in my response here, where I have an issue with Western coverage is that there seems to be a push for us to believe that the violence is universal (it's not even close) and that calls for boycotts and peaceful protests is somehow equivalent to the actions of those perpetrating the violence when it's not.

Am I horrified by the violence? Yes. Am I even marginally sympathetic to those who are perpetrating it or encouraging it? No.

I'm just very, very suspicious of the motivations on both sides of the debate that are trying to play up the violence and I think a step back and a real hard look at what few facts are available in this evolving situation is called for.

Admittedly, I've been ill (and actually still am), so I'm playing catch-up now. What I am seeing, though, is an awful lot of hysteria and an awful lot of fanning the flames, none of which is helping anyone right now.

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

I think there's one or two of the cartoons that I understand can be offensive, one or two I don't get and some of them were pretty amusing. Overall I was rather left with a feeling of "this is what they're burning down our embassies for?"

I've been trying to catch up on facts since they started burning the embassies - the actual printings of the cartoons were in September, so the situation has some build-up.

As far as I understand, a lot of the kerfluffle started with the murder of that Dutch filmmaker. Then a Danish professor was doing a lecture, and was quoting the Qur'an - and wound up getting death threats for this. After that, the community were fairly afraid of what would happen, and so when the children's book author needed illustrations for his book about Muhammed, he had serious trouble finding illustrators who dared do it - and they wound up doing it anonymously. This was the situation Jyllandsposten wanted to prove a point about, by inviting caricaturists to draw these cartoons. Of course, since I don't read arabic, this is a mixture of Danish, Norwegian, British, American newspapers.

Though, Arabic journalists stationed in Norway has stated that they've not reported several errors to their paper regarding who said what, with the result that the head of the press organization in Norway - who was advocating the free press, but not necessarily the drawings, has been portrayed as Editor of Jyllandsposten, and similar errors. The journalists just said that it was something that would sort it self out. (Paraphrasing.)

Then you also come to the part where Denmark's Queen Margrethe is being portrayed as a racist in some of the demonstrations. The reason for that: The Queen's biography was published last year. Parts of it was translated to English. The translator mucked up - and now the Islamic world thinks she's against islam. What she was commenting on was how one should provide alternatives to the very fundamentalistic parts of islam - that might be less violent, instead she was quoted as saying that one should provide opposition to islam. Because of an error in translation. But then again, this whole thing is rather stupid.

I don't think the violence is universal. The media will play things like this up - and relish it for as long as they can. Unfortunately, there are idiots on both sides.